Page 6 of The Strawberry Thief
Maman shook her head. ‘How could I? It belongs to her.’
At her table, Madame Montour was still watching me over her chocolate. Pilou was still standing by the door, looking red-faced and impatient. I noticed he’d had his hair cut into one of those new, trendy styles.
Try the churros?I signed.They’re good.
But Pilou only shook his head. ‘Maman, we have to go. I’ll be late.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Joséphine. ‘Why don’t you talk to Rosette for a while? He has some friends coming over,’ she said to Maman. ‘It’s his girlfriend’s birthday. But we have plenty of time. Sit down, Pilou. Relax a bit, for heaven’s sake. Have achurro.’
Pilou sat down, but he didn’t relax, and he didn’t take achurro. I wondered if he was angry about something. His colours were like a bonfire. Then I wondered what Joséphine had meant byhis girlfriend’s birthday.Pilou doesn’t have a girlfriend.
I made a little bird-noise and Bam made the bead curtain rattle and ring. But Pilou didn’t laugh, or smile. In fact he didn’t look as if he wanted to be there at all, and it made me sad. We used to be such friends, before he went off to thelycée. I drew him a picture of him as a cross little raccoon, sitting in front of a birthday cake.
He started to smile, then decided against it and made the impatient face again. ‘Comeon, Maman,’ he said. ‘We’ll be late!’
Joséphine sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Vianne. I’ll be back another day.’
And then she got up without even finishing her chocolate, and Pilou said: ‘See you, Rosette,’ and set off running across the square, his satchel slung across his back. For a moment I wanted him to slip on the cobbles and hurt himself, but instead I said: ‘BAM!’and turned away, and saw that Madame Montour had gone.
Maman said: ‘Boys are stupid sometimes,’ and poured me a cup of chocolate.
I shook my head. I was still feeling bad. And I didn’t want any chocolate. I wanted to be alone, in my wood, where no-one could see or hear me. I knew Maman was trying to help, but that made me feel even worse, somehow. Maman doesn’t realize I’m not a little girl any more. Sometimes I think Maman still believes that chocolate can fix anything.
6
Thursday, March 16
The whole thing feels like a practical joke. On Roux, on Michèle Montour, but most of all on me,mon père. I know I should not speak ill of the dead, but Narcisse was always a difficult man: dry as a handful of autumn leaves; no lover of the Church, and fond of putting me at a disadvantage.
I went to find Roux at his houseboat, to explain the situation. He keeps it by the old tanneries, at the far edge of Les Marauds. That once mostly derelict part of the village of Lansquenet has become another community, mostly of immigrant families: Maghrébin and Syrian and North African and Arab. Shops, selling all kinds of food, have opened up along the Boulevard des Marauds. Shops with names likeEpicerie BismillahandSupermarché Bencharki;plus any number of tiny stands selling watermelon slices, or coconut milk, or boxes of home-made samosas, each box covered with a silken scarf of a different colour.
The scarves, I know, are a kind of code to identify the baker. Fatima al-Djerba is red: her daughter, Yasmina, is yellow. Yasmina’s daughter Maya, too, has a box – her scarf is white, the samosas fat and misshapen. But Maya is only ten years old, and can therefore be forgiven.
Roux was fishing in the Tannes when I arrived, bearing the news. His red hair was pulled back in a kind of a bun, which might have looked girlish on another man, but instead made him look like a Viking on his way to ransack a monastery. He has also grown a beard, lighter than the red of his hair, and it makes him look wary and dangerous.
He listened in silence as I explained, his eyes never leaving the fishing-float bobbing in the water. Then, when I had finished, he turned to me and simply said:
‘I don’t want the land. Give it away.’
‘I can’t give it away, Roux. You’re holding it in trust for Rosette. That was what Narcisse wanted, and I’m the executor of his will.’
‘So, let Vianne do it,’ said Roux.
I sighed. ‘It’s your name in the will. You’re the one he wanted.’
‘Why?’
‘How should I know why?’ I said. ‘Why did he make me executor? Why did he leave the land to Rosette? Your guess is as good as mine. He just did, that’s all I know.’
Roux made a harsh sound in his throat. ‘The idiot. What was he thinking of?’
I didn’t understand why he cared so much about not holding the land. Was it pride? Some kind of political stance? Or was it the discomfort of having to deal with officialdom, to come to an office in Agen, to sign papers in his real name—
Of course he will not tell me. He might perhaps confide in Vianne. I wonder if evensheknows his real name, or cares about his history. He has no passport, no bank account; he does not vote in elections. Roux of course is a nickname, based on the colour of his hair. He has no parents; no family that he has ever mentioned. He seems to have lived all of his life as an observer, a passer-by, moving from one town to the next whenever a place begins to seem a little too familiar. I know how that feels, although I would never think of telling Roux that. I know how it feels to exist on the outside of the group: for conversations to stop at my approach; to stand outside in a darkened street, looking in through the windows.
Of course, being a priest is a privilege that also demands certain sacrifices. A priest can never be like the rest of his congregation. He can never fall in love; never have children; never relax; never be like other men. He must never forget who he is. He must never lose sight of the fact that he is the Lord’s servant. What is Roux not able to forget? What keeps him on the water?
‘Narcisse wasn’t his nickname, you know,’ I said, to break the silence. ‘It seems to have been hisChristianname – that is, if you can call it such, with no saint or Apostle to name him after.’ I always assumed his name was a joke, like calling a butcherJean Bon, but apparently, his real name was Narcisse Dartigen, from Moncrabeau, along the Garonne. ‘Funny, the things you learn when someone dies. Narcisse. What parent names their son Narcisse?’
